A constant blight on humanity is famine. Many great civilizations have been brought to their knees by food shortages. With a growing population, this is a major concern for many. One Soviet botanist wanted a way to fix this issue. “TIL about Nikolai Vavilov, a Soviet botanist whose aim was to end hunger worldwide. He collected seeds of wild crops and deposited them in a seed bank in which to produce new strains of crops. Stalin denounced him and used him as a scapegoat for a famine. He perished in prison from starvation.” – Obscure Fact by Mad_Chemist.
Nikolai Vavilov was born and Moscow in 1887 and pursued the study of botany for the majority of his life. Vavilov became interested in plant breeding. Specifically, he began conducting studies into disease resistance problems affecting oats, wheat and barley. Vavilov, the then Head of the Department of Applied Botany, was elected by the new Soviet Union for a mission to travel to the United States to collect seeds of wild crops for cultivation. His goal was to try to breed seeds that would be frost-hardy, drought-resistant, and tolerant to different blights. In a political campaign, Vavilov’s type of study and genetic breeding, in general, was denounced by Stalin. He met his end starving in a cold jail cell.